Kevin Harvick unfazed by changes at Dale Earnhardt Inc.
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick says he isn’t surprised by the challenges facing Dale Earnhardt Inc.
DEI, which fields NASCAR Sprint Cup series teams for Mark Martin, Martin Truex Jr., Paul Menard and Regan Smith, learned this week that Menard is leaving the company at the end of the season for Yates Racing and taking sponsorship from his family’s Menards home-improvement stores along with him.
Martin, who announced in July the he is leaving next season for Hendrick Motorsports, also won’t return, and the same appears likely for the U.S. Army, which is sponsoring the No. 8 car Martin is sharing this season with Aric Almirola. Almirola will drive the car full time next season.
The No. 01 of Smith has been unsponsored all season and doesn’t have sponsorship lined up for next year. That leaves DEI with just one primary sponsor in place for next season – Bass Pro Shops on Truex’s No. 1 car. Also uncertain is the long-term future of Truex, who has been with DEI the longest of the team’s four current drivers. Truex reached a one-year agreement earlier this season to remain with the team through the end of 2009.
All the uncertainly comes less than a year since Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s much-publicized departure from the team for Hendrick Motorsports at the end of 2007.
“For God’s sakes, they let Dale Earnhardt Jr. go,” Harvick said Friday at Talladega Superspeedway when asked if he was surprised by DEI’s challenges. “That’s a tough deal to recover from when you let the most popular driver in the sport go from your organization. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I think you’re just seeing the repercussions of that particular move, and it just keeps spiraling.”
Harvick says he is hopeful the organization founded by the late Dale Earnhardt can remain in Cup for a long time, though.
“Obviously you don’t ever want to see a team go downhill,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good thing for the garage by any means. Obviously, I think that there has to be some control from the ownership of it to try to foresee these things coming and try to put some things in place to make it as good as possible, but I don’t know the ins and outs of how that particular company works, and I definitely don’t think it would be a good thing for the garage if Dale Earnhardt Inc. was not here.”
